Everyone has a film or two they have a weird, but perfectly normal and healthy, attachment to – mine include Hot Fuzz, Love Actually, and the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. Netflix recently distributed a brand new Christmas film, A Christmas Prince, which seems to have diehard fans already!

To sum it up briefly (and without spoilers!), journalist Amber Moore goes undercover posing as a tutor for a young princess to get a story on the crown prince, Richard, but ends up falling in love with him instead! The film gets its festive name for being set around Christmas…

Obviously, some people are bound to enjoy this cute but simple sounding film. Netflix, however, are slightly concerned for a handful of their subscribers. In a light hearted tweet, Netflix asked ‘To the 53 people who’ve watched A Christmas Prince every day for the past 18 days: Who hurt you?’.

To the 53 people who’ve watched A Christmas Prince every day for the past 18 days: Who hurt you?

The hilarious tweet had some people somewhat worried about Netflix looking at their viewing habits – maybe they had shamefully watched 50 Shades of Grey one too many times!

This isn’t the first time Netflix has shown concern for their subscribers. A redditor recently posted about how he managed to watch the entirety of The Office (U.S) in 5-10 days – that’s a whopping 4 days, 3 hours and 30 minutes of content – and received an email from Netflix asking if he was okay, due to his dramatic increase in viewing activity. No judgement just a friendly check in to see if everything was alright.

While some people were slightly creeped out, it’s normal for websites to track data of their users, and sometimes the weird findings are too priceless to keep to themselves. It’s fantastic to see a big company that actually cares about their subscribers, I just hope that it isn’t revealed how much I actually watch Hot Fuzz!

It’s been a tough past year for Southern Rail, but their delegation of duties to one of their new employees has turned things around for the company on social media. 15 year old Eddie was put in charge of the rail company’s Twitter and brightened the days of commuters across the country with his polite and funny responses to users’ increasingly bizarre and outlandish questions. His charming social media temperament even landed him an interview on BBC Radio 1 with Scott Mills and reams of media coverage, with people totally endeared by his efforts.

Eddie assisted the public with all manner of questions, from film recommendations, to what he thinks about pineapple on pizza, who will win Love Island and even answering a few train-related enquiries along the way. It was a light-hearted change to the generic enquiries and complaints experienced by any train company’s Twitter account. Southern Rail employees recognised Eddie’s talent for social engagement and even put him back on tweeting duty the following day to keep up his good work. His original tweet introducing himself received almost 2,000 retweets and 6,000 likes and from there, people were hooked on his tweets and he became somewhat of a viral sensation, with thousands of people engaging with the Southern Rail page.
Here’s a selection of our favourite pearls of wisdom from Eddie:

Twitter has once again proved itself as the best tool for facilitating dialogues between big named companies and single individuals with hefty appetites, and in this case quite literally!

A teenager in Nevada has accepted the huge fast food chain Wendy’s task, of reaching 18 million retweets to get a year’s supply of free chicken nuggets. The sixteen-year-old Carter Wilkerson confidently replied to the challenge with simply: “consider it done” and posted a screenshot of the exchange for, at first, a laugh but to the boy’s surprise, the simple screenshot turned out to be the spark which spiralled out of control creating a trending support base across the internet.

Carter has even set up his own website and is trending on twitter as #NuggsForCarter with giant companies such as Microsoft encouraging companies like Google and Amazon to join in! And yes, you guessed it; they are all fully supporting his food fight for the precious Nuggs!

Some companies such as United Airlines are even pre-empting the boy’s victory and facilitating a free flight to “any Wendy’s in the world”. The Mattress Firm Company also got involved and promised to help out with the recovery stages of the age-old food coma by providing Carter with a “food coma sleep pack”. Keep your eyes peeled for more upcoming companies to get involved in their own unique ways.

If you get the 18 million RTs, we’ll give you a free flight to take you to any @Wendys in the world in a city we serve. Good luck! https://t.co/igxnPg1JUF

As with most trending memes it is not long before brands catch on to a new way to appeal to their younger demographic and likewise as with most things on the internet, it all started with a photograph of a dog.

The “Zoom in on the nose” meme originated with people sharing photos of another classic meme subject: the “doge” or more commonly known as the Shiba Inu. Upon closer inspection of the image, informed with the initial clue of where to look, the viewer is lead on a text based scavenger hunt as each new sentence found includes new directions to another part of the picture. Each final sentence is unique, however they all share a similar wholesome message; usually in the form of a compliment which accompanied with the original photograph of an adorable pooch is guaranteed to brighten your day.

With such a simple concept it is unsurprising that many brands have jumped on this bandwagon. The method is left largely unchanged with end results ranging from tongue in cheek comments on time-wasting, cheeky requests for more subscribers to genuine facts that you may have previously ignored or quickly forgotten in more conventional marketing. And of course it would not be the internet without at least one reference to Rick Astley and his infamous infuriatingly catchy song. You know the one I mean.

Without giving away any spoilers, here are our top examples of how brands have whole-heartedly embraced this new creative craze.

Well, last night was surely a treat for fans of the popular BBC One crime drama Sherlock. The fourth series of the programme aired on 1st January and has since been gripping fans of the show. To celebrate the new series, writers Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss tweeted live to fans in the character of Sherlock on the official @BBCOne Twitter page last night (10th January).

Fans were given the opportunity to solve a new mystery online and in real-time through the use of Twitter, users had to crack the murder case of Daniel Collard with a series of clues provided through Tweets. Case files, police interviews and suspects lists were given to users to aid them in solving the case. A series of polls were also created to increase the interactive aspect.

Jo Pearce, the creative digital director at BBC Wales mentions it was an idea already in the works. “It’s an idea we’ve had for some time – I’ve just been waiting for the right opportunity to try it out.”

We would like to apologise for the hacking of our Twitter account and can assure you that normal service will resume shortly. #SherlockLive

This was a genius way of encouraging fan interaction and giving fans something exciting to look forward to, as opposed to just watching the show. It further introduces new fans to the TV show who may have not known of its existence prior – as Twitter is such a huge social media platform, trends attract new audiences. The BBC and the writers of Sherlock created something well thought through; they were able to spot their target audience and created a stunt which coincides with their interests. It was a huge win for all involved.